Success!

I proclaim my visit to the Manila International Book Fair at the SMX Convention Center yesterday a smash success. The National Bookstore booth was practically giving away Oxford University Press editions of classics, pricing them at P80 each. Here's my loot: The Bible, Herodotus' Histories, Boswell's Life of Johnson, Pater's Renaissance, Wilde's Major Works, Henry James' Wings of the Dove and Portrait of a Lady and Austen's Emma.

The best things in life can sometimes be almost free.

Girls, "Album"

A week to go before the release of Album, the debut CD of San Francisco-based duo, Girls. I've been a fan since I discovered their music videos on Youtube--surreal vignettes of the careless, reckless life of American youth. Listen, I'm not kidding when I say they're fantastic.

FP Laptop Bag

Planning to replace my old heavy laptop with something lighter, but first I had to find a nice bag to put it in. Now I know. The Fred Perry Twin Tipped Laptop Bag is instant love.

I Gotta Feeling

Awesome.

A.P.C. Sustain

Okay, so $260 for a bottle of perfume is quite much, but there's only 300 bottles of them in this world, and sandalwood and patchouli are wonderful scents. And it's A.P.C. Enough said.

Here's the text from Material Interest:

There's a reason that A.P.C. hasn't offered a scent before now: Owner Jean Touitou found the very idea "vulgar" and "gross." But after meeting a girl in L.A. who blends essential oils, the man found it in his heart to offer up Sustain, a combination of 12 oils in an odd but compelling wooden sculpture surrounding a glass bottle. (Think postmodern pepper mill and you're close.) We got our hands on the only tiny vial of the stuff in the city, and the predominant notes of patchouli and sandalwood seemed to hit the summer-into-fall mood perfectly. We didn't quite catch the smell of a guitar case lined in bright velvet and scattered with rose petals that was the apparent inspiration, but the unisex scent's moniker does pay a nominal tribute to rock—it's named for a guitar-effects pedal. And maybe also for its creator's new fixation: Touitou's former distaste is now an "obsession" bordering on "addiction." You've been warned.

Sango!

I'm not a fan of working lunches, because meals really deserve everyone's full attention. But in the few instances that I had to stay at my workspace for lunch, Sango's yakiniku rice burger has been my foolproof option. Uncomplicated and extremely tasty, it makes you forget about the unpleasant feeling of having to work through lunch. With a glass of Coke, perfect.